


Vital Fluids

by Ink_Child



Category: Naruto
Genre: AU sci-fi/fantasy, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-29
Updated: 2017-05-29
Packaged: 2018-11-06 10:29:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink_Child/pseuds/Ink_Child
Summary: "Tears, that is what sustains me. Weeping, gnashing of teeth, despair." He snarled. "If you are seeking mercy, you will find none." Her eyes were dry, infuriating in her calm. "You already showed me mercy when you spared my sister's life." He had never been silenced before. Change, primal and terrifying, had begun.





	1. Bloods

_Bloods_

In a sky star-pricked and brooding she watched the sailing shift of the humanoid comet searing towards the soil below.

Eyes blessed with the sharpness of predators traced it's descent until the limbs were visible within the flames, until the agony he endured for birth into their atmosphere was tangible through the fall.

The wings would be charred black by the inferno of crossing into the Veil Lands. It would take more of their elegant curves to have the same potency as their pearl counterparts but no matter.

After 100 years of waiting for the fall of a star one could not be picky about the details.

"Young. And with a heart full of darkness and hate I fear." Her voice broke the stillnes of their souls poised to the trajectory of the heavenly body ripping through the navy sheet and clouds.

"At least we will not need to feel guilt for slaying him to take his marrow then." Her sister's smile graced her face like a blood stain in the dimness and Hinata breathed in hard.

Twirling the glaive expertly above her head to cut the air and disperse the glowing dragonmoths intent on sucking their blood she sighed, tucking the heavy weapon under her arm, close to her side and next to her heart.

"Ready to hunt?" Hanabi stood, gathering with slow careful breaths the energy and primal raw pulse of magic from the soil below through the soles of her feet.

Behind her the fallen star exploded into being in sparks of crimson and indigo as it crashed into the ground. The world was set to trembling, and the long lemon grass swayed making the smell of earth and citrus and heat rise around them.

Swallowing hard Hinata nodded, poised to release the coil of tension in her body. Still smiling, her sister unsheathed the elbow blades at either hip, the metal settling to her forearms with a comfortable anticipatory clink.

"For our glory." Hanabi prayed.

"And those of the Hawk Eyed Blood." Hinata countered.

With a breath they shot into the darkness of the swaying trees where the smoldering angel had fallen, their bodies cutting through the grass, raptors aimed to slaughter.

* * *

He came from the heavens. He came from the darkness, where the stars fight for dominance, in a world where light is wielded to killing blows, where stardust is shed like blood. The fire and inferno of being soilborn was not something that agonized so much he could not bear it, but his heart already fragile with the hatred inside it shuddered and groaned.

The ashes and the dust, the fire and charred woodland hissed and spit, the water that hid within the fibers of the trees evaporating split the trunks as it boiled from the explosion of heat of his landing.

Breathless he stirred, gathering his wings along himself, gazing with a face so pale the soil smeared along his cheek looked like a berry stain.

"Obsidian." His whisper was strangled and with shaking fingers he touched one long razor sharp feather as the wings moved and fretted behind him, adjusting to the air, to the weight of the soilpull, to the touch of the breeze.

Bare chested he studied his body for wounds and finding nothing of interest listened intently, hearing with ears too keen for the world he now resided in the rapid fire steps of something approaching purposefully and therefore cunningly.

They exploded from the foliage in a hiss of power and breath, their bodies elegant and daring, their lungs dragging ragged tattered breaths even as their weapons hissed through the oxygen.

He braced himself as the first threat alighted on him, blades flashing in the night.

She was a small bomb of energy and magic, her blades a sparkling fuse lit and shortening. He screamed, a sound like the tearing of bone, the boiling of blood. Shifting hard to the right he let the two spinning blades on the girl's hands slam into the glass he had created with his impact into the sandy soil and it splintered and split, exploding around them in painful shards that made her shriek in pain.

With a grunt of pain himself the fallen angel flashed his wings, batting away the bitterly sharp glass. Gasping the thin oxygen he spun at the sound of the glaive in the other attackers hands cutting through the air with the whipping speed of a hummingbeasts wings.

The grunt coming out of the girl's voice as the glaive cut through the air was strained. She snapped to every spot he tried to occupy, always a second too late. His energy ebbed, his limbs were heavy and worn. He needed sustenance and from the sound of her heart hammering in her chest there was the chance that his attackers too were exhausted.

He had to end it quickly, before they realized he was not at full strength.

Batting hard at the flashing fiend with the glaive with his wing he hissed at the bite of her weapon's edge and grunting hard grabbed at the first and smaller of the girls now sitting on the ground. She gasped, blood rushing from a wound on her shoulder and side from the explosion of glass.

With a cry the young one twisted hard, and blood spluttered from her shoulder over his hands, coating his fingers in the red hue. So different, so foreign.

He stared at the sticky warmth of her life, aware of the frozen glaive wielder standing before him only vaguely.

"Release my sister." Her voice however drew his gaze, pulling his attention from the shimmering redness on his fingers, staring with eyes black and empty as the deepest caves at the frightened girl before him.

"You were not trained well enough to capture one of my kind." He responded amiably, and he watched with curiosity as her pearl colored eyes flinched hard, watching him suck the blood off his fingers, savoring the new flavor of metal, earth and spice.

In his arms the wounded blade wielder grunted hard, repulsion and animosity coming out on her breath. Also fear. It left a tang in the air stronger than the flowery living scent that wafted from her dark hair.

His words were true, for he was not a liar and even more importantly, his kind were repulsed by lies. As he cleaned the redness from another long digit he eyed the older sister in front of him some more, watching as her pale gaze shifted over the situation, calculating.

Behind her the sky was a splash of violent purples and dark blues, stars had once been numerous and distant, a scattering of sparkles across the heavens.

Now there were only handfuls, so close they were holes punching through the smoothness of the heavens. Behind it all the orb of their moon glowed bright, it's shattered left corner sending splintered bits of rock along the heaven's to reflect the sun. It was a piece of glass perpetually breaking to a million pieces.

He thought for a moment, how the eyes of these two hunters resembled that moon.

It was then that he realized he had made a mistake.

Eyes flashing to the face before him, he gripped the wounded body of the girl against him harder, just in time to duck as the glaive sailed with precision and force towards his head. It sliced the air, tugging on a bit of his cheek as it passed by his snatched features, ripping open a red sneer along the high cheek bone on his handsome face even as he snatched himself from it's murderous intent.

It took his breath away to see her coming after the glaive with speed he had not anticipated from a creature of the Veil. Her face was a mask of smooth lines and there was something ferocious about the lack of expression in it as she launched herself at him fists raised, the dagger flashing in her grip.

Growling deep within the confines of his being he shoved forward, throwing the girl in his arms up not as a shield but a projectile.

Even diminished as he was, she was easily flying through the air and as her elder sibling watched, eyes widening a fraction, the knife that glinted so sharply was suddenly dropped.

They crashed in a pile of arms and legs to the glass covered ground, and he was on them in seconds.

Brutally he kicked hard, sending the already wounded one onto her back. The sound of cracking ribs and choked wet gasps that tinged her lips crimsonberry red echoed in the stillness over the tinkling of the shattered glass crunching beneath his feet.

"No." The elder was up again, scrambling over to them, agile despite the wince of pain on her face. "No, don't touch my-"

"Sister, yes I heard." He grunted, and the wings which were spreading wider encompassing all of the sky in the ebony black of his darkness batted her away with such ease as to call forth a curse from the broken one now beneath his bare foot.

Even gasping for breath, even curled against the pressure of his heel on her broken rib, even bleached white as the pearly eyes in her face the spirited little thing clenched her teeth.

"Be done with it, firebound. Release me from this shell." Her spit was splattered pink and red across her chin and he contemplated the determination on her face.

"Firebound." He mused at the insult, watching a feather sharp as a razor, black as the starless sky tumble through the air to land beside them. "I suppose I am."

Hinata's shriek was a tear in the fabric of the anticipatory calm. " _No_!" The buzzing of the insects and the whistle of the breeze through the reedy plants of the underbrush paused to breathe as Hinata scrambled to her feet. "

Her chest heaved, and the blow from his wings had left slices across her hands and clothing, across one cheek, neck and exposed a round glowing patch of her shoulder through a rip in her tunic.

His dark eyes peered through the locks of ink black hair, mouth calm and expressionless, even as he glinted with the malicious intent of a kill.

"Please... _please_ don't kill her. _Please_." Tears.

He watched as the diamond liquid rolled from the corners of her eyes and over the curves of her cheeks, leaving trails of precious magic along her skin.

Tears.

These creatures produced them?

"Starwater." He snapped in surprise, watching the tendrils of liquid condense to a droplet at the soft curve of her chin, threatening to fall.

Two, three of those tears would reduce the pain of his landing, more would dull his gnawing hunger, even more would have him closer to true fighting form.

A continual supply... his gaze flickered to his blackened wings...he might gain back the purity of his feathers, maybe...

Maybe even make it back home.

"Do all you dirt-crawlers produce starwater?"

From below, wincing at the knifing pain of his heel at her shattered bones the younger one hissed out a sharp. "Yes."

The elder however shook her head, jaw pinched tightly closed. "Don't listen to her." Her voice shook like her body did and as he watched he marveled at the control it was taking for her to stay standing. He could see from the blood seeping along the length of soft gray leggings that the sharpness of his feathers had seared a deep wound along her thigh. "Only those of us with weak hearts can produce them." She blinked her pale eyes rapidly, and the glitter of those tears shimmered in the light. "It is compensation. To balance our...shortcomings."

Shortcomings.

Slowly he returned to the broken thing at his feet, her wheezing breath hinting a punctured lung. "She will die anyway."

"No!" And the elder took another step forward, freezing at the murderous flash of his eyes. Hands raised in pleading she shuddered and trembling visibly whispered, "We know your blood can heal us as our tears can heal you. Please." She swallowed and her hand traveled to the slash on his cheek. "Please."

And she said the words he had been waiting for, hoping for. "I offer my life in your eternal service in exchange for my sister."

Even down on the ground, even pressed like a mantisbug to the grass, soil and glass the younger flinched and fretted, her mouth filled with blood and her eyes flashed. "No!" The strangled cry escaped her as more of the scarlet liquid spilled over her lips. "No!"

He would have been a fool to not take the offering. It would have been idiocy to not see what bountiful blessings would come witht he aquired slave.

A slave who could produce starwater.

Before the slash on his cheek finished closing he slid a pale hand along the bone, gathering the remnant streams of molten silver that spilled from the gaping wound knitting closed even as he crouched.

In the shadows he was a giant carrion bird, the wings multiplying his size and magnitude and imprinting the image of his pale bare chest, his luminous glowing skin, and the flash of long cold charcoal of his eyes within his white features to her memory forever.

What had her clan been thinking, sending them out to hunt a fallen star?

How could they have thought that they would bring it down?

Bring _him_ down?

Hanabi struggled in vain, trying to clamp her lips shut even as he gripped her cheeks and squeezed her mouth open smearing the silver liquid into her protesting maw.

Clamping his palm firmly over the now coated teeth of the girl he watched as she tried to wrench herself free without disturbing the damaged ribs, without suffocating in the blood coming from her lungs. Soon the molten silver would wind through her throat, begin to leech into her stomach lining, pulsing through her body in slow waves, and the bone would reknit, the blood would be coughed from her lungs.

Maybe it would take two hours, or four or eight. One thing he did know.

It was not going to be pleasant.

"Do not waste the starwater." He murmured, turning to the frozen withering thing that was the elder sister. Startled she turned her pale gaze from the snarling weakening form that was her sibling to him.

Rivers... she had caused rivers to appear on her cheeks, meandering slowly over the smooth paleness of her skin. Insure of what he meant she watched as her sister finally swallowed right before passing out allowing him to let go of her and move lithe as a stalking beast towards her.

The wings folded heavy behind him, barring her little sister from view, enclosing her in the void of his darkness.

Her trembling resumed, but she kept her pale eyes raised to his, her features straining for calm.

His grip on her chin made it difficult to keep the panic from flashing in her eyes, but there was a valiant attempt at holding her hands stiffly at her sides. Carefully, with the same curiosity of before fluttering over his face he bent down, for she was much shorter than him and pressed his tongue warm and moist to the edge of her cheek, sliding it long and slow until he tickled the flutter of her lashes.

The liquid was sweet, it coated his tongue and seeped into his bones with a warmth that made his marrow feel close to boiling. A welcome sensation after having cooled from shining brightly in the heavens always at a constant burn.

Closing his eyes to savor the heat and magic he let out a breath that almost rattled with a moan.

Almost.

Perhaps she figured it was the one time she would be able to ask, right after having delivered on her promise that her tears would bring him sustenance.

"Will my sister live?"

His eyes flickered open and with their proximity he watched her search his face with earnest, unveiled inquiry. Trust. Whatever he said she would trust it

The smirk that graced his lips was slow in coming and had little of the warmth he felt in his bones.

"Yes. But she will suffer much to get there."

On cue, hidden by the black of his feathers Hanabi's voice cracked with agony, and the crumple of cartilage and bones flashed a wince through the elder sister's face. "Oh!" she groaned and moved as though to step around him.

His grip, so gentle just a second before tightened, and dug into her chin as though to bruise. "No." He shook his head. "We had a bargain."

Eyes wide with sudden panic her hands rose, for a moment there was the flutter of digits aching to form magical seals, the instinct of a warrior with none of the warriors thoughtless intent.

"Please! Please, let me stay with her until-"

He almost laughed then, and his grip on her chin forced them almost nose to nose. "Had I been at my full strength you would have been dead in seconds. As it is, this annoyance has proved to be helpful to me and for that I will let my blood put her back together."

Another creaking sound and then the retching of Hanabi drowning in blood began behind them. An agony with the still broken rib shifting to wrestle straight across her torso.

"But you and I, we have places to be. And anyway," He watched with unabashed hunger as the tears welled in her gaze, glistening on her lashes. "I heard emotional pain makes tears flow as badly as physical." He cocked his head. "Lucky for you I won't have to slice the tears out of you."

There was no chance for a good bye.

There was nothing.

Just the grip of his arm around her waist, the sudden falling away of the soil below, her frantic grip on his shoulders, arms, anything as they rose into the air and her sister's prone form growing smaller over his shoulder.

Then Hanabi was nothing but a smear of gray and gold against the darkness of the clearing ground, and a whisper on her older sister's lips.

Hinata wept, trying not to recoil at the feel of the fallen angel's lips along her mourning face, drinking up the sadness like it was the best honeywine.

It was surely the overwhelming sense of loss that allowed her voice to shift, to whisper and ask even though now she was just a thing owned and kept instead of a person free. "... _why_ did you come?" And the regret was heavy on her tongue as she whimpered. " _Why_ did you come here?"

His mouth leeched the tears that poured from her face for another moment before offering a short furtive answer, uninterested in making eye contact with her as they sailed above the sky in a flurry of fluttering deadly feathers.

"I came to destroy someone." His explanation was curt at least, understandable. "My body would not have been of use to you." He smirked as he continued to feast upon the tears. "Hatred lurks inside me. Had you dried and ground my bones to spread across the fields, the soil would not have produced the crops you yearn for." He shook his head. "Poison would have grown instead."

She did not answer or ask anymore, and after a time of being cold found herself resting limply in his grip, listening to her heart beat in rhythm with his wings.

There was no satisfaction in knowing she had in the end been right. Her soft spoken supplications with the elders of her clan had gone unheeded.

Sometimes it seemed to her that having a weak heart had more than just the tears as compensation. Sometimes, it showed her the truth.

A hate filled thing could not produce abundance.

Now she had paid the price for her clan's arrogance.

When her tears finally stopped but his flying did not she felt the coolness of the night wind drying the last touch of his tongue on her face until her sadness had been consumed completely and with the fuel he continued on.

Soon, too tired from being frightened and saddened she fell asleep in his arms.

And the hateful thing kept flying.

* * *

_**TBC** _


	2. Introductions

_Introductions_

The world beyond the copse of the trees lining the borders of their valley had always been a thing too dangerous to venture to without very adequate reasons.

Within their valley, confined and safe in the arms of the leaf covered mountains was water, soil, wind and the hot springs that boiled and heated their stones for warmth. More than enough to sustain the heartbeats of all those who lived within the protection of the mountain range.

Or it had been for many years at least.

In that time of peace some arts had been lost where others had been perfected. Painting, flute playing, carving. The training of architects who could make wondrous curving buildings that sang when the wind blew past them. Dance and singing flourished. Where other noble arts, those of hunting, skinning, killing and dying were mostly left at the wayside while peace and prosperity reigned.

Only one clan clung to some of the warrior ways, only one blood line held on to the knowledge that the peace would one day be broken. Like a wildfire to raze the soil to blackness and bring back the nutrients calamity came in fits and starts. When it happened they would be ready.

That was the mantra of those of the Hawk Eyed Blood. When the calamity did come in the form of the disappearing stars and the shattering of the moon they were not surprised. Except, they had miscalculated more badly than any of their ancestors would have believed. The bodies of the stars that fell from heaven may have decayed and brought on abundance from their graves, but there was a price too heavy to pay. With the last of the stars to fall over a hundred years ago the soil had become steadily more impotent. It yielded less and less with more and more strain.

Eventually the hope was pinned on another falling star, and the people of the Veil so long not interested in the happenings of the heavens became transfixed by the last remaining flickers in the navy and purple sky.

His fall could be seen weeks before he landed on the Veil Lands. The elders debated and argued about what to do about it. But it had all been for naught. A hundred years of expectation was hard to argue with. There was only one thing to do. They had to try to slay the star, if it fell living. Use it's bones, heal their fields, heal their sick with it's blood.

She had been right. His quiet, blushing cousin. The heiress of the Hawk Eyed clan always so buried in her books and scrolls had known something no one else had. The quest had all gone so terribly wrong.

"Veil have mercy, restrain Hanabi's soul within it's shell, keep her with me."

Neji's face was a mess of sweat and blood not belonging to him. With his heart in his throat and his limbs shaking he struggled down the hillside, cradling the small body of his youngest cousin to his chest. A cloak had been tied loosely over his shoulder, making a carrier of sorts that supported much of her weight as he struggled down the sharp incline of the mountain.

On either side of him two shadows ran, featureless and silent, breaths non existent, their vigilance on him and the dangerous terrain constant.

"Nightfall comes." On his right the blackness of the shadow took the shape of a woman, her hair a tangle in two knots on her head. "We will not be able to stay with you by moonlight. Let me come to you."

"No, Tenten." Neji grunted softly, scrambling over a boulder protruding from the slip and slide that was the rocky path the shadows had picked as his road. "I can't think of protecting you both in the black. Please don't."

"Protect me?" The shadows edges fuzzed and fizzled with irritation, and on the other side of him the twin blackness of the other shadow moved his head back as though surprised at Neji's words.

"I don't know why I bothered to ask." She snapped, beginning to spice the air with electricity. It was not subtle. The shadow was suddenly humming a high pitched noise that sent a bolt of power through the air and with the tingle of lightening on the breeze a woman climbed out of the blackness, stepping through her shadow until it fell, once more a normal thing against the ground behind her.

Her brown eyes matched the color of her tangled knotted hair on her head, and with her hands on her hips the sleeves of her tunic flowed in curtains along her thighs. Jaw tight she watched as Neji shifted Hanabi in his arms and scowled.

"I just told you not to come. It's dangerous out here-"

"I'm coming too." The other shadow began, and the first smack of shocks began to fizzle through the air.

"No!" Tenten and Neji shouted together. "We need someone to be in contact with the village." Tenten continued when Neji did not. "In the morning..." she paused, eyeing the limp bloody thing in Neji's arms with a tightening of her jaw. "If we're still alive, you will be able to let the elders know, Lee. You're more use through the blackness."

The young man's shadow seemed to think this through for a moment. The black of his being was not completely solid and through it Neji watched the dim suns begin to set due north.

"As you say." Lee agreed. "At the first touch of dawn's light, I will be with you."

"Dawn then." Tenten smiled, although her eyes did not meet the expression. Pressing a hand over the pounding heart hiding within her tunic she breathed slowly to keep calm. "You are missing from me, Lee."

If the shadow smiled she did not see it without any features on it's head shaped form but his hand lifted to his own heart. "And you from me, Tenten." and in a blink it had disappeared.

Now leaning on the rock he had been aiming to climb over Neji tried to steady his breathing. The air was so thin up on the mountain range that he felt perpetually dizzy, and carrying the weight of his cousin although she was tiny was soaking his tunic through with sweat.

In the carrier Hanabi's head lolled carelessly, stretching her long pale throat to the remnant touch of orange from the first setting sun.

Tenten eyed the sky, tracing the line of the second sun and calculating.

"Maybe we have an hour before Luminatus sleeps." She murmured, her earrings twinkled as she moved her head to follow the trajectory of the star. "Solatta is nearly gone." She watched then as the first and younger of the suns sank further between the mountains on the other side of their valley, only a sliver of shining white against the darkness of the range and then it was gone.

Neji was not watching the suns. His focus was on Tenten, jaw tight. "I told your brother I would keep you safe."

Ignoring him the girl moved forward, taking Hanabi's smooth cheek in her palm to study her expression. From having been with Neji in her shadow form when he arrived at the crash site of the angel she knew Hanabi was in no regular sleep. Covered in blood from face to knees the girl had been writhing in agony and unaware of the world beyond her closed eyes. This quietness that had overcome her was not natural.

Even still, it was hard to remember that when she looked so calm and young in his arms. If you ignored her blood soaked tunic she could have been having a well deserved nap.

"I see no wounds, despite the blood." She murmured, drifting her hands over Hanabi's little body, feeling for coagulating claret or awkwardly placed bone fragments beneath her fingers.

"Tenten." His voice was exhausted and it was that admittance that finally drew her brown eyes up. A bead of sweat rolled down the side of his handsome face, his brows pulled tightly together as he stared at her, waiting.

"Lee knows I intend to serve my life at your side." Tenten shrugged. "What use am I if you will not allow me to perform my calling."

"Lee is my friend. I promised him I would let nothing harm you. What friend am I to break such a vow?" His tone was less than amiable, it had the edge of authority and although she almost always resented its use it was especially irritating aimed at her.

"It was a foolish vow." She snapped her head around, making her earrings swing and shimmer in the dying light as she studied their surroundings. They had been still too long, but judging from his hurried breaths he had needed the break. They needed to find a tree to make camp in and with the ravine full of rocks and hard clay there would be none big enough for some distance. They needed to hurry.

Neji's vexed growl was low but resigned and knowing what she was thinking was easy as her eyes trailed the nearby trunks.

"I think there may be some adequate forest further down. Would you like me to carry her?" Tenten continued, spotting what looked like a silkweed through the deep green and navy blues of the foliage that stretched out beneath them at the bottom of the rocky ravine.

The silkweed only liked to climb the tallest of the trees, with the sturdiest of trunks. Once entangled in it's bark it rose as high as it could for it needed much of the sun's touch to grow and thrive. It's smooth lime green tendrils were soft enough when fresh to chew and eat raw, bursting with citrus and jaw breaking sweetness from so much sunlight. Once well established it was shaped as a thick ribbon, smooth as silk spiraling around it's host tree. In a silkweed infested tree they would find shelter from the creatures that lurked in the night on the forest floor and food from it's softer tendrils without needing magic. If they were lucky it would have collected the cloudwater in the pockets of it's twisted length.

In that tree was food, rest, water.

Survival.

They had to get to that tree.

"I don't want you to carry her. One of us needs to be able to handle a weapon if it comes to it." Neji's sigh was more than just tired, and Tenten's decision to arrive despite his abhorrence was vindicated.

"Certainly. Let's go."

Together they struggled down the rest of the rocky incline, unconsciously taking turns to glance at the still and unresponsive bundle in Neji's arms.

They did not speak it out loud although it was singing within their heads in unison. It had been four days. If Hanabi did not wake up soon...

Instead of dwelling Tenten sighed in relief as they hit the smooth flatness of the woodland, showered in the gold light of dusk the silkweed glowed in the distance, having nearly turned the trunk of it's host tree green.

"There." She pointed and watched as the pale eyes of her companion stared through the trees. In seconds he was allowing himself a relieved sigh.

At least for this night, they might survive.

* * *

When she woke there was a fire, and she nearly screamed out loud.

The terror clawed at her throat to escape but even it quailed when her eyes landed on the creature across from her sharing in the dangerous heat and light of the burning wood. She shuddered violently as she watched the flames dance, spitting sparkles of violet and blue as bits of the wood released their juices in the burn.

His wings were gone, and he seemed so much smaller that she hardly knew what to make of him. Shoulders hunched he sat with his back to the cave wall and stared at the dancing flames with a calm that seemed irrational.

Inching back several feet Hinata stopped only when the other wall of the cave mouth hit her shoulder blades and she nearly melted against it's cool wet points, soothing in comparison to the chaotic burn before her.

She had only ever seen one other fire in her life, and it had not endeared her to it's chaotic frenzy. Of all her nightmares, the ones that rankled her to sweating and sobs were always brightly lit with flames.

"What are you doing?" His eyes did not lift from the heated thing that licked and spat and shimmied in the darkness between them. His voice was bored, but also on the brink of annoyed and thinking it best to keep him from irritation Hinata swallowed the dryness in her mouth as best she could before replying.

"...I... I'm sorry... I... I'm frightened of the flames."

His gaze did lift then, the blackness of those eyes piercing past the shaky reality of the heatwave emitting from the orange thing eating violently the wood.

"It's true then." He mused, not really replying to her but thinking to himself. He had heard of some dirt-crawlers fearing the warmth of flames. Although, he had been unsure about believing it. Surely nothing sentient was so backwards. Softly he whispered, "What stupidity."

Sitting stiffly now with her knees to her chest she breathed out slow, as slow as she could. The world out beyond the tangle of her limbs was too warm and yet within her a flash of something sharp and superheated as the fire threatened. It took her a moment to realize what it was, to take it in her mind and delicately turn it one way and then the other to study.

After another long pause it finally dawned on her.

She was angry.

"Fire ravages." She said it softly as he too spoke, straining against the emotion bubbling in her chest. He did not need to know that she had watched it flare high in the sky, had been too small to understand it, had basked in it's heat and watched as it caught on things she loved... things... _people_ she missed.

His smirk, unshaken by the tremble of dislike in her voice was just as ravaging as the flames, beautiful as the snarling grin of a many toothed predator. "Yes." He agreed. "It does."

The shiver that traipsed down her back made her close her eyes against his expression.

"Come here." His command left no room for discussion and with her back pressed to the cave wall she forced herself to look at him across the blaze. The fire reflected on the blackness of his eyes, making him look like something hellish. Her sister, small and vicious like a strike of lightning had called him Firebound to his face, and in that moment she wondered if it had been an insult to a thing such as him. Somehow she doubted it.

"...I...I cannot get near it." She whispered, despite the urge in her limbs to comply. Those dark eyes blinked slowly across the sweltering waves of heat coming from the flames.

"I will not ask again."

The threat was silky smooth and with her heart thumping in her throat she pictured again her sister, broken and spitting blood, the crimson stain across her chin dripping in ribbons from her face.

If she was ever going to get back home to Hanabi she needed to stay alive. If she was ever going to look her father in the face again, she needed to comply.

There was a freezing knot cooling her throat to pain but her limbs moved, almost of their own volition, trembling and shaky from her wounds and terror. The higher she stood the more the smoke stung, and cinders snapped and crackled from the roaring thing between them, like it was enticed by her movements.

The fallen star leaned back, laying his dark head against the sharp stone of the cave, watching her through hooded eyes as she slowly wandered around the fire, her back to the darkness of the cave mouth where the woodland hissed and rustled with the wind.

Keeping her eyes always on the flames, shaking hard every time the fire cracked or hissed she made it across to where the angel lay, although without his wings she wondered if calling him an angel was accurate.

"Pathetic." His voice slid beneath the sound of the flames and her eyes flickered to him, filled to the brim with the panic and wariness.

Memories were tickling at the back of her brain, threatening to consume her like the fire consumed the logs within it's grasp. Blinking hard Hinata clenched her jaw, straining against the images.

He was fast.

Faster than any of her clan, who were renown for their speed, for their agility and grace. In a moment he was on his feet, making her start and nearly jump back into battle stance. However, his grip was on her face and waist, forcing her in a half dip that bent the small of her back and curved her to him.

It was a vulnerable position, one so against everything she had ever been taught that her heart hammered hard and any words she knew died within her mind. Protestation was only a gasped stuttering sound in her mouth, hands on his shoulders that half pushed before he had her wrist pinned behind her back.

"Enough." There was no patience, no kindness in his tone and when his lips met her cheek she froze.

Once on a gleaning walk through the forest with her back heavy laden with plants to bring home for the Acolyte banquet she had wandered upon a many-tailed fox. They were rare in their forests, beings made half of fire half flesh, the dirtied blood of a hell cretin and a woodland fox.

His tails had waved hard at the sight of her, flickering like the fire did now although she knew because it was in the lullabies she was sung by her Ayah that despite how hot the fox looked he did not burn.

He did however eat flesh.

In his mouth a long eared rabbit heaved for breath. White as the moon fragments in the sky it gasped and stuttered, and her eyes already so sharp despite her young age could see the pulsing of his heart beat, too fast for life, to hurried towards death.

The fox lowered the creature from it's mouth to the mossy ground between it's charcoal black paws and bared it's canines at her in the flickering light of it's glowing tails. Hinata had remained perfectly still, looking back with pain in her heart. The little rabbit lay still heaving on the ground, it's bright azure blue eye glistening as it gasped.

"...I...I mean you no harm." She had whispered, taking a step back to concede the fox this battle. It was young, but then so was she. Yet she was no fool. Training told her when to retreat as much as when to obliterate. This was not a battle she wanted nor needed to fight.

The fox let himself grumble low in his throat, and satisfied with her slow hesitant steps back proceeded to take the rabbit into it's mouth once more.

It was the moment that his maw snapped to the creature's snowy coat that the rabbit froze, his eye dimming, his breaths snapping to a stop as abruptly as the snap of a twig.

Either it's heart had exploded in it's chest from fear, or the terror froze it's bones.

In the angel's grip Hinata stared at the dark cave ceiling, with his mouth on her skin thinking of the fox and it's canines sharp against the snowy coat of the rabbit. She had been trained for so long to be one of the foxes, the wild dogs, the flesh eating birds of the trees, and yet she had always known.

With the heart in her chest, and the tears in her eyes. She was no fox.

She was a rabbit.

Snowy white, until gored scarlet.

The trembling was overtaking her despite her best intentions to be still in his grip. With one hand at the nape of her neck loosely tangled in her black hair and the other gripping her wrist hard she felt the smirk of his mouth against her chin before his tongue lapped at the tear condensing there.

"You taste of fear."

Slowly Hinata closed her eyes, straining not to crack her teeth with how hard she clenched her jaw.

"And shame." This was said with mild amusement. Delicately the tongue slid up her cheek, tickling her lashes before departing.

"You _should_ be ashamed. It was a foolish thing to do, coming after a fallen star." He muttered, pulling away. As easily as he had taken her, capable of breaking her spine with the brute force of his hands he was done, releasing her to stand shivering despite the heat.

With shaky fingers Hinata rubbed at the wetness on her face, not from her tears but his tongue. It seemed surreal, that she so quiet and modest, so set to celibacy in the service of her people and clan would now be here... wiping the saliva of a male from her cheeks.

"I...I tried to tell them." She breathed out soft and uncertain, wondering if her reply was allowed let alone wanted.

His eyes did not reveal surprise or even interest as he lowered himself back down to the ground, although they did not deviate from her face.

"Them?" He grunted, turning back to the fire finally. "Who is important enough that you should go to your death willingly?"

With growing uncertainty Hinata shifted, still wiping at the wetness on her cheek with the sleeve of her ripped and battered tunic. "The elders... my father..." She swallowed. "It is what I was raised to do."

"To kill me." It was not a question.

He turned his eyes back to her then and to his surprise she did not look away. Studying her in the light there was the clarity of grayness to her iris, not just white. He watched, contemplating as her pupil dilated and narrowed sharply to the dance of the fire.

Pale eyes, fear of fire, weak heart capable of producing tears, and if he judged based on the throw of her weapon at his face she also had excellent aim which meant likely as not...

"Hawk Eyed." He stated the fact. "You're one of the Hawk Eyed blood." He was certain now where before he had only hypothesized.

Lowering her chin a little to her chest she continued to stare back, ignoring the shaking of her limbs.

His smile was worse than a snarl. "Of course you are. Only an idiot of your clan would try to take down my kind." He turned away. "I wonder how many more they will send before they finally realize even their heirs wouldn't faze me."

"They will send no more." Her voice was quiet, her swallow thick. He was unimpressed and unconvinced. "Why so sure?"

"I am their...I was their heiress."

It took effort to keep surprise from flickering over his face, coolly he studied her tight jaw, and the now weakening stance of her legs still wounded from their introductory tussle.

"What a pity."

"...I volunteered." This was an understatement, she tried to ignore the half lie. The truth was she had shown her first sign of disobedience when the decision to hunt the descending star was announced by the elders of her Clan. She would go whether they allowed it or not.

"You will have to keep me caged, sedated, tied up." Her voice had shaken, her stutter ripping her words apart and her eyes had been unable to raise to her father sitting among the elders, who was surely flushed with shame. "But I will not send one of our people out there to hunt the star I am sure will slay them. If I am ever to protect my clan in some way, the blood offered should be mine."

"You volunteered to die." He turned away, tired of the conversation.

Softly, as she lowered herself to the ground with a wince of pain from the cracking of half formed scabs all over her she sighed. "I know."

The thing they both didn't bother voicing although it twisted through their minds at the same time was the stark truth.

She had in fact _not_ died.

* * *

Tenten did not regret her choice to magic herself to Neji's location. She did not regret it despite his irritated scowl or the shiver of fear that spider walked down her back or the fist of cold terror that tightened at her stomach every time the woodland rustled or sighed through the night.

Up in their silkweed infested tree they were silent, with Hanabi fast asleep in a makeshift hammock on a sturdy young branch, dead to the world in all ways but her heart and breath.

Together Tenten and Neji pried open her mouth and using the leaves of the iron tree that housed them collected mint tasting water. It had sat cool and refreshing in the twisted pits made by the silkweed's growth tangling like curtains around the tree's trunk. Once Hanabi had swallowed several mouthfuls they had settled with their backs to the trunk hands holding bunches of the chewy jaw breakingly sweet tendrils of silkweed roots for their supper.

Below in the darkness of the forest things moved and rustled. Glowing insects shifted and buzzed, sometimes humming loud as machines, other times whispering hardly audible over the sound of the wind through the leaves.

By their light the ground below was revealed to their tired eyes in shades of violet, navy blue and neon green.

Nothing stared back from the shadows. If they were lucky, nothing would notice them and try to climb to their nest to make a meal of them.

"You should sleep." Tenten whispered in the darkness after swallowing the third bite of the silkweed tangles. It almost hurt the teeth to eat them plain, but the sugar content would arm her with quick acting energy. It was as pure as energy got, almost a direct translation of the suns' rays and the magic within it to food she could absorb with her mouth.

It was as close to photosynthesis as she would likely ever get.

"I can't." Neji whispered, his eyes flickering through the darkness, searching. "You won't be able to see if something is hunting us from a mile away. I will though."

Tenten let out a breath through the nose that said more about her annoyance than any sentence she could have put together. "You've been going non stop for almost a full rotation of the suns. You won't be able to walk straight in the morrow let alone see anything if you don't sleep. Don't be foolish."

Neji's gaze continued to shift through the shadows, at half mast despite his best intentions. Beside him he could feel the pressure of Tenten's hip against his own, more comforting than his bed, more familiar than his pillow.

"If something happens..." he hesitated, picturing Lee's face should something occur to his precious sister. Already he was returning with only one of the Clan's heiresses. He could not arrive back to their village without Tenten.

"I'll tell you what," Tenten began then, tugging on his arm. For a moment he wasn't sure what she was doing, until she was wrapping her arm around his shoulder, and pressing him to her lap.

Drowsy half formed thoughts filtered through his mind. Thoughts about proper decorum, and about how his body should never be anywhere near a young lady's lap.

But he was so very tired. His bones heavy as the rocks he had climbed over all day yesterday, and the day before, and the day before.

It didn't take much convincing for him to find himself curled on the giant branch, his head in her lap, eyes already more than half closed. "If something is aiming to kill me, how about we both die and neither of us have to go back home to inform anyone of our failure." Tenten's voice sounded confident and assured, like her plan was logical, obvious, fool proof.

"That is so very _not_ soothing." Neji grumbled, although he was still inching closer to slumber, his tight aching shoulders loosening.

"I can protect you too, you know." Tenten's fingers were in his hair, slow and steady they slid through the brown tresses, untangling knots as she found them. Usually Neji's hair, long and to his waist was a single sheet of brown, shining and neatly plaited down his back out of the way. To find knots was surprising, but then he had been travelling for days now.

"I never said you couldn't." His voice was worse than when he had indulged on nectar spirits at the last Acolyte Festival, more groggy and raw. That day he had looked at her long and hard, his hand always so steady and sure had shaken as it tucked a lock of her unruly copper brown locks behind her ear.

Under the swirling glow of the dragonmoths she had stared back, wondering how much of her his beautiful hawk eyes could see that others could not.

He had said nothing but her name, just the two soft syllables whispered over drunken vocal chords, but there had been a lot in that whisper.

That night she had told Lee she intended to offer her life to the Hawk Eyed Clan. It was for all intents and purposes willing slavery.

Her kind brother had smiled sadly, taking her chin in his hand to study her face. "Of course you are."

Surprising her in the quiet of the dark woods, with his breath so even she was sure he was asleep Tenten blinked to hear Neji's voice again.

"I _know_ you can protect me...yourself...everyone." He whispered. "I just...wish you did not have to."

The words were heavy on her lips as she slid her fingers over his scalp, listening not only to the shifting woodland but the pounding of her heart.

She never said it, but when she was sure he was asleep she leaned to kiss his temple, hoping somehow that the words would pass through her skin into his.

_I_ want _to protect you. I want to._

* * *

The hunger had gone from a soft pulsing pain to a hollowness that threatened to grow into a blackhole, capable of eating her up with it's fervor. Breathless she followed after the angel, her hand pressing hard to her stomach where the throb of her heart echoed a second after it beat in her chest.

Around them the forest whispered and hissed, and her ears so long trained to compensate should her eyesight ever be gauged in battle heard every rustle, every shift, every crack of a branch beneath their feet.

It made her jump how he blazed through the woods like a scorching fire. He cared nothing for stealth, breaking branches of bushes with his shoulders, crackling the dry underbrush beneath his boots, his steps heavy and relaxed.

By contrast she skittered as much as she could through the woodland as a ghost. Without meaning to she began to make space between herself and the angel's broad back, aching that he was calling so much attention to himself.

To her.

Travelling through the woods during the day light was only a fraction safer than at night when the real toothy predators liked to stalk. It did not mean there wasn't anything out there in between the foliage eyeing them with interest.

In a world years into dying everything was ruthless, careful and cunning. Being invisible had been the only true defense against the dangers outside of her valley. And now with him...

"Stop dawdling." His shout made her jump and she breathed unsteadily through her nose, pressing a handful of her tunic hard into her belly button. Dizzy, and with sweat trailing down her face she looked at him, opening her mouth although no words came forth.

Several feet away from her he frowned, dark eyes and hair a match to the pants he wore. The material was unlike anything she had ever seen with none of the coarseness of hemp and none of the softness of insect spun silk. It was black as his hair and eyes, and on his thigh a single belt wrapped tightly, three little bottles sat snug within their leather bindings, besides that, and his boots he wore nothing else.

In a different situation she would have been embarrassed but exhaustion and hunger and fear had a way of driving her blushes to the back of her mind.

"I... I am..."she began uncertainly. "I'm starving."

A frown flickered on his face and he stopped, listening suddenly. Hinata too closed her eyes, focusing on a sound coming ever closer, quiet but not exactly stealthy.

Only one thing moved so carefully and rapidly. Something that was no longer counting on stealth to offer the element of surprise. Whatever it was must be close enough that if they heard it they still wouldn't have long to prepare.

Her eyes snapped open just in time to turn towards the thick bushes and meter wide leafy umbrellas of the mud wall to her right, spreading her stance and lowering her point of gravity.

Standing several feet away he watched, body loose- uncaring.

The pack exploded from behind the foliage in a tidal wave of black, brown, and blue gray fur. Besides the colors so in sync with the terrain there were the teeth, incisors so large the animals couldn't close their mouths and ears so wide they twisted and turned to follow sound.

With no eyes to speak of, the carnivorous hound-pigs were completely reliant on sound and smell, their flat noses snorting even as they trampled the bushes and coming from a five feet high ledge on her right Hinata had a moment to let out a scream tinged heavily disgust before they were on her.

The crush of the bodies was instant, there was pain as their meaty heated breath heaved onto her face and their soft bellied muscles strained to grab a mouthful of her limbs.

Thrashing to get her hands into the unlocking seals of magic she gasped and finally interlocking her third finger on her right hand with her thumb on her left she shrieked, "Environ!"

It took the wind out of her to do it with no food, little sleep and inadequate water in her body. The soil beneath her was too far from her skin to lend her the earth's power. Drawing from stores she did not have the magic sphere snapped to life around her, see through as glass when in her stronger moments it had always been closer to stone or in one particularly good day metal and precious jewels.

The hound-pigs smashed against the shield in frustration that their prey, only mildly mauled, was now impossible to access. Their mouths gnawed at the see through magic, leaving streaks of their putrid saliva on it's curves.

Hinata gasped for air, holding her torso with one arm and panting. Warily she looked past the threatening pack attempting to break her shield to the angel who stood now flanked by his razor sharp wings with his hands in his pockets, studying her.

Whenever one of the creatures dared to try it's teeth on him his wings moved elegantly, snapping over the body, sending it flying slashed almost to ribbons from the force and sharpness of his extra limbs.

"A shield." He muttered, eyeing the bubble in which she hid, jumping when one of the animals slammed into the curved surface with a resounding smack of breaking bone. "So this is what the heiress of the most renown warrior clan of Veil can do in an emergency." He sounded unimpressed.

"...I...I haven't... I haven't eaten anything in two days." She panted. A list of things tallied against her the length of her arm. Inadequate sleep, inadequate water, no food, no medicine for her wounds, no chance to even wash the wounds or wrap the more severe ones.

His face remained placid and as he approached another hound-pig came barreling at him when the attack on the bubble didn't prove fruitful. With more hostility than before his wing came slicing through the air, slamming into the four legged scampering creature. The force of the blow sent it reeling into a tree and as it hit the wood the resounding crack of it's spine snapping made Hinata jump to throw her hands over her ears.

"Well there." He jerked his chin at the bloody, now dead creature. "You can eat that."

The horror on her face was not to be ignored. Mouth slack and eyes wide she blinked at him, trying and failing still to regain her breath.

Through the tangles of her dirty black hair she turned away from the dead creature, one of her hands coming to her mouth as though to keep something in. He watched, perplexed as her body almost heaved.

Having finally grown tired of the mess he flicked his wings again sharply, forcing a wave of air hard through the clearing laced with the deadly black of his feathers.

In a moment every creature besides Hinata with her hands on her knees and her head low, lay dead. Black feathers embedded into throats, heads, and ribs.

"You can eat all of them, if you can do it fast enough." He added. "For all I care."

"I..." Hinata winced, feeling how thick her mouth felt with extra saliva she couldn't afford due to dehydration. "I...I don't eat flesh."

The shield flickered, appearing and disappearing in bursts like the batting of insect wings and then vanished, leaving her in the eye of corpse strewn storm.

Disdain, thick as the saliva in her throat dripped from his voice. "What do you eat then, _princess_?" The word was not endearing, said with a hiss and reminiscent of useless women unable to do anything but faint.

Hinata's head snapped up, looking at him through the mess of her indigo black hair. The gray of her iris had sharpened and his smirk was involuntary although he didn't care if she saw.

"I...I can forage, I just... need some time."

"Time is the last thing I have to spare."

With her knuckles white on her knees and her eyes unfocused as she counted the fallen hound-pigs she groaned, closing herself off from the carnage. "Where are we even going?" The exasperation in her voice was not hidden and the thought of striking her crossed his mind, it flickered and then died as quickly as it sparked to life.

No.

He glanced at the feathers then, ebony black and deadly, a reminder of how far he had had to fall to be where he was.

He had no intention of falling further, and striking her would be another rapid descent. Still, rather icily he murmured, "I would watch my tone in the future."

Shaking visibly she pushed herself to standing, her shoulders drooping, her lips turned down in a frown she could not hide. The glitter of her eyes drew his attention like dragonmoths to nectar and in a handful of rapid steps his wings were retreating into his back, making a sound like a chorus of knives being sharpened on stones. As the last of his feathers vanished, he was upon her and she closed her eyes, bracing for the onslaught that was growing more and more familiar with each instance.

Unlike usual his fingers traced the trail of the single tear on her face, sliding up along the curve of her cheek to her lashes. Carefully he licked his finger clean and when she finally opened her eyes he blinked mildly at her, dark eyes searching.

"Anger." He slid his tongue over the roof of his mouth, grating the tear into his taste buds. The spice of her fury was subtle, closer to cinnamon than cayenne but still strong. "I will let you forage, you will need to be able to do more than make a clear shield if you're going to survive to sustain me after our first goal."

She hesitated only a moment before sighing, "What goal?"

"We are going to The Scaled Worm."

Her eyes widened and as he turned and began walking away she scrambled after him, nearly tripping over the discarded bodies of the hound-pigs.

"T-the Scaled Worm? But... but..." Fear twisted in her gut. The ancient being that hid within the tallest mountain was a creature used to terrify children into behaving. Stories of it's unpredictable character were told by the glow of fungi lamps on long nights. It was the oldest and wisest of the Veil creatures. A being so ancient there were none of it's kind left. Sometimes it accepted offerings of precious stones, or rare plants as payment for it wisdom. Lost family had been located by his ability to taste the air with it's forked tongue, smelling out the person on the flecks of dust that traveled through the air.

But sometimes precious stones or impossibly difficult remedies were not payment enough. Sometimes after offering a service the worm would salivate, and through the dark of it's pitch black den only it's teeth glinting through the shadows would be seen.

On those times, the creature would tear it's supplicant apart, limb by limb, eating the person slowly, over the course of many days. Sometimes he stretched their death to unnaturally long periods.

"They-t-they say he's as likely to eat you as help you!" Her panic was not unfounded, but it rushed without restraint through her veins, making her dizzy. "I-it is a fickle and untrustworthy thing. I-is he who you go to slay?"

His grunt was offended. "No." Loudly, but with an elegance she could not deny he climbed over a fallen tree trunk so wide he had to use the thick rock hard mushrooms growing on it's sides as handholds.

Unable to breathe Hinata watched him scale the wall of timber, minty green with moss and spotted with vines and fungi. As he climbed she dug her hands into her hair, her face pinched with fear, wondering at the smoothness of his shoulder blades, rippling with muscles defined and sharp but with no sign of his wings or where they went inside him.

"W..why...why go there? Who are you looking for?" Finally unable to keep the rest of the words from escaping she bit her lip, tasting blood that made her nauseous. "Who _are_ you?"

Now standing on the trunk of the tree he glanced down at her, impatience making him frown.

"Sasuke Uchiha."

Her hands dropped to her sides as she stared.

"...W...what?"

Frowning intently now he motioned to the tree. "Climb."

"You're...you're Sasuke-?" She paused, and the shiver that rankled through her rose gooseflesh over her skin. Gazing up at him her brain fought the information, disagreeing, begging to have not heard correctly.

But there he was, his elegant long fingered hands limp at his sides even as his face tightened in consternation, black eyes flashing with a fire she now could not deny.

"You're looking for the traitor." She clenched her hands so tightly the knuckles whitened and ached. "You're looking for your brother."

The angel flexed his jaw, saying nothing.

Suddenly it all made sense, and her heart plummeted to her stomach. Her mind flooded, with images of the half destroyed moon, the night sky so forlorn and dark with the ever decreasing number of stars where once there had been so many. The war that had raged in the heavens had not interested those of the Veil. Up above the angels and planets fought and lived, but it was then during the war that the stars had begun to fall or sometimes simply go out. At first in few numbers and then, all of a sudden in great sweeping patches of the sky. As suddenly as the lights above began to go out the fields began to produce withered dying crops, sickness began to seep into the bodies of the Veil clans.

The legend said the civil war had torn the galaxy in two. That one side aimed to enter the Veil and eventually Hell below the Veil's soil, believing themselves the rightful rulers of all three worlds: Heaven, Veil and Hell.

The other side fought hard, as guardians of the peace they moved to eradicate the extremists. They had the victory at hand, until one of their most glorious stars switched sides- some stories just said he went mad.

He was known as The Apostate. The eldest son of the Uchiha Clan. Itachi.

His younger surviving brother had one fate to perform, as one of the few stars left.

Kill the Apostate, and then mercy slay her dying world.

Sasuke, the second son of the Uchiha Clan.

"You're... you're The Vindicator." Her voice was more than just weak. Black ate at her vision in hungry vicious bites.

His smile was just as painful, just as raw as the gnawing hunger in her gut.

"Vindicator? No, _princess_. I'm the Executioner at best... and the Murderer at worst."

It was the last thing she heard before the hunger, the wounds, the terror took her into the black, and the words echoed through her mind long even after she collapsed.

* * *

_**TBC** _


	3. Dryness and Rot

The dreams were less of a burden and more of a self mutilation.

There were things that triggered them. Things like looking at the wide expanse of navy blue and indigo that was the night sky. Where once it would have been a smeared with brightly colored light, twisting and turning with the glow of the stars.

Closing his eyes to rest with that image in his mind almost always resulted in the dreams, or nightmares if he was honest. Although, when he spoke about it to anyone he always called them by their true names.

Memories.

_The clink of his armor had reminded him of the chimes that littered the veranda of home, where the star dust breeze would sweep through the pillars, whispering over the smoothness of the ice and stone floors, jingling the singing bells as it passed, setting off a chorus of joy._

_This sound, although similar was not joy._

_This was death._

_With eyes deeply set within his exhausted face he tried to breath normally, tried to stay focused as he pushed through the frenzy._

_The battle that was raging around him frothed and roared. Swords were raised, skin was severed, splashes of silver blood erupted through the air. Beneath his feet the white and gray of the moon's outermost surface crunched._

_Of course Danzo would have chosen to have their last battle where the Veil could see the shining flag of the victor. The shining flag of their Master._

_The layers of smooth ebony armor on his body shifted as he slid his hand to the blade on his back, tightening his grip on the hilt when Danzo's cat-like movements were finally detected in the strange glow of the moon. Shadows crowded in the most strange places when the only source of light came from below their feet. But his eyes- the darkest of the genetic oculars of stars were unoffended by the glare._

_Bodies lay in slayed piles around him, and his heart tightened with anger and mourning. Across the sweeping blue of their soil the soul trees of all these stars would be disintegrating. From below the Veil would watch as great patches of the sky were suddenly turned off, empty._

_A brief confused thought pricked at his consciousness, even as he watched Danzo turn, his blade ripping apart another's neck, slicing silver blood in a wide arc. His eyes, so solemn and serious peered through the gore at Itachi's set jaw, and the blade spinning to life in his hand._

_Would the people of the Veil see the darkening of the stars and mourn? Would they care?_

_Would they say the gods were dying?_

_Or would they curse their lack of response when they offered up a prayer?_

_Drinking in a breath so deep it ached he flexed his knees, tightened his grip on his sword and begging the moon for her help launched himself at Danzo, the hopeful oppressor of worlds._

_In the distance, shrieking with panic and fury, he heard Sasuke's young childish voice tear through the atmosphere as his wounded mother dragged him away._

_"Brother!"_

The jerk of his body from sleep to wakefulness was always so sudden, like being thrown into freezing water from high above. His gasp was muted despite his terror and in a moment he felt the soft hands that always lulled him to silence, the delicate lips that smoothed over his face and whispered of warmth and loving and peace.

"You're safe. Itachi, you're safe."

That was not the problem, but he did not contradict her as she climbed into his lap where he sat shuddering. Her limbs so small and fragile compared to his well scarred shell tangled through his arms and around his neck. With her pressed so hard to his chest he calmed at the feeling of her heart pumping hard past her rib cage echoing inside his own chest.

The darkness of the cave they had picked for their short rest was all encompassing and oppressive but nothing scared Izumi anymore. Sometimes he worried that her lack of fear would be the thing that killed her.

Perhaps if she were afraid like a normal creature she would have feared him also.

Voices whispered in the dark of the cave, even as he felt her breath hot and sweet and familiar on his face before her lips traveled to his, effectively slicing through the memories that haunted him.

"Is everything okay, Captain?" Kisame's grating voice was the only one he could understand in the onslaught of whispers.

Breathless Itachi drew back from Izumi's mouth, feeling her smile along the curve of his jaw bone pressed softly to the pulse there.

"Everything is fine, Kisame." Itachi whispered back, shifting until the wall supported his back, giving his hands freedom to slide up along Izumi's spine to the shoulder blades where he always wondered at the lack of feathers.

"Tch." Kisame's grunt told him that perhaps the steadiness of his voice could have used a little more effort, and an amused snort from Deidara signaled they had ideas about what had made him sound so shaky. Unperturbed, Itachi tightened his hold on Izumi and steadied his breathing to calmness. Living in very close quarters with people made privacy irrelevant. After a hundred years of this, it didn't even enter his mind to be irritated.

The rest of the night they did not speak, instead they listened to the even breaths of their comrades in the darkness, and to each other's heart beats only separated by a couple inches of blood and bone.

In the morning Izumi wept with compassion and love for him as he told her his dream and he drank from her tears, tasting the emotion all the day down his throat as he kissed the liquid from her lips and eyelashes.

Out in the sunrise they breathed in carefully, eyeing the spitting geisers of fumes that choked and potentially killed if the vapor was inhaled too quickly. Beyond the cave the land stretched endless and sick, alternating between swamps that smelled of rot and pus and the fermenting decay of life, and the bone dry freezing deserts that scorched at noon and bit with cold at night.

Food was a long lost concept, it had been months since their last venture into an actually forested area and neither beast nor plant offered sustenance to their large and ever growing party in their current patch of Veil wasteland.

Still feeling the boil of heat and affection from Izumi's tears on his tongue Itachi turned to his band, all whom stared back with eyes as dark as his, although none began that way. The effect of surviving on nothing but his blood had taken years to show. That, among other changes in their bodies now marked them as his just as strongly as it marked him as theirs.

When he sliced his hand open on his sword and fed them from his blood he almost forgot the scream of his brother echoing in the darkness of his nightmares, too distracted for the time being by the hungry mouths who fed on him.

When everyone was satisfied by a mere handful of drops of silver on their tongues, Itachi straightened eyeing the desolate landscape with a frown.

"So, ready to keep hunting?"

He had to give it to Danzo. After a 100 years of searching the Veil for the putrid thing that had once called himself a star, Itachi was impressed by his ability to hide and bide his time.

But it was over, finally he had caught his scent on the wind and found the trail.

Kisame grinned madly at him, and Izumi laced her fingers through his, pushing locks of her hair from her face idly as the breeze lanced with poison whipped through it.

"Whatever you say." Her smile was sweet, like her tears and he breathed in deep despite the rot. He couldn't deny that he felt warmed by their faith and devotion, by the new family he had gained through the century.

Ignoring the hollow place in his heart where Sasuke's name festered he turned and started away.

* * *

It had never occurred to him just how much sleep the people of the Veil required, and as he watched her breathing slowly beside him he allowed himself one deep sigh.

There were a lot of things that his education had not warranted as important for the completion of his Calling. His tutors and instructors had focused on getting what they thought would be the most important truly burned into his memory. Mostly the topics were on how to rip his brother apart and the things he would need to know to stay alive on a land that already looked gored and dying from their vantage point in the sky.

Long ago when he had been nothing but a boy with wings of pure white and silver the Veil world he peered at through the roots of the soul trees had been green, teal blue, sparkling gold. It had ridges and peaks, and clouds that shifted white and pale lavender over it's surface.

It had been one of his favorite past times, finding himself lost in the forest of souls. The trees so brilliant white and perfect that the trunks were smooth as alabaster carved into poles soft and blemish free. The branches were perfectly distributed in a way that seemed almost unnatural, with leaves made of green that appeared more like glass and less like plant life.

These trees were rooted deep in the soil of the sky, first there was the mossy metallic layer, below that the rich black dirt speckled with bits of glimmering bronze, and further down the navy blue and indigo that was the sky.

Through the soil, if you dug deep enough the roots of the soul tree spread wide and glowed brightly on the other side of heaven. Sometimes Sasuke wondered what it looked like to stare up at the trees roots from the Veil down below. Did it look like a tree from so far away?

His brother would laugh when he asked such questions, shaking his head. "The trees roots look like light, Sasuke." He smirked. "Just little points. They can't see this far."

"Well... perhaps they should be blessed with better eyes." Sasuke's voice had been petulant. His curiosity of the world below was not exactly natural. The world of angel stars seemed so monochrome in comparison, and sometimes he felt like he was the only one to notice. Even their cities which grew tall and spiraling, intricately carved from the marble and rock were white as the ground they were built on. The trees themselves were creamy and pale. Beyond that the skies were black but for the rotating suns and the reflective surface of their moon land.

Colors were limited to the leaves of the soul trees, one tree for each angel soul. When an angel finally died, after serving out it's life in the care and protection of all three lands the tree succumbed, breaking down into the bronze powder that flecked the black soil in which the forest grew.

And so, the constant cycle of life and death continued, those that passed feeding the souls of those who were present so that they could feed those of the future.

"They have not asked for better eyes." Itachi's voice had been even more amused. "The people of the Veil are happy."

Looking around now, Sasuke wondered how things could have changed so much in so little time. For them, a hundred years was a breath in a life span that stretched for centuries.

Clearly not so for these creatures. The world of teal blues and greens and sparkling gold had vanished, and great stretches of the land were marred by the dead brown and red of deserts. Entire forests gone, rivers carved like scars across the landscape, dry as bones.

"It really would be a mercy to just get rid of you all." He grumbled, watching as the dirty tired face of the girl beside him breathed in an out in exhaustion. It had really not occurred to him that she would have needed to eat or drink anything for the last two days. Even if he had not had access to her tears he would have been able to continue on his trek for an some time without stopping, even wounded or mildly weakened by his travel from the heavens.

The fire hissed and spit like his thoughts in the shadows of the night, and he eyed the forest beyond the ledge of rock at the cliff side that he had decided would be their resting spot for the evening. There was no escape but into the air from this point should something come at them from the trees.

Looking intently into the shadows he flexed the muscles of his back and contemplated the desire to rip something apart, almost daring the forest to send out a challenge hungry for his blood.

A soft groan derailed the thoughts of slaughter in his mind and in the most bored way possible he turned his dark eyes down towards the shifting figure beside him, stiffly gathering herself up into sitting position.

As her pale eyes, lit brightly by the fire's heat scanned the heavens he watched as fear ripped over her features.

"We... we're out in the open!"

Annoyed he turned away back to the fire. "There's nothing I can't outrun or lose a fight against here." He muttered. "Calm down before your heart explodes."

A startled and wary look crossed her face as she snapped her head towards him then, and shakily she pinched her lips together. He wondered what words she was trying to crush to silence between her clenched jaw.

"It will be dawn in only a few hours." He added. "You can forage while we continue on."

Shivering as she pushed herself away from the fire the girl nodded. "I t-thank you." And as the silence stretched he watched out of the corner of his eye as she studied her hands, and traced a pale pink scar that now decorated her thigh where his wing had so easily sliced. With growing quickness her fingers fluttered over the pink lines that were all that was left of her wounds, ending at her lips which had been so parched and dry they had cracked and bled. Now they were pink and smooth, plump as though she had been well fed and watered.

"I...I'm not bleeding." she whispered, almost to herself although her gaze fixed on him a moment later and he refrained from looking back.

"You were dying." It was a careless uninterested explanation.

Lips pinching hard together again she stared, and then looked at the faint scar on her thigh. Tracing it with her pale dirty finger.

"...y-you gave me your blood." There was no questioning tone and so he did not reply, despite her bewildered stare.

After an extended silence broken only by the cracking of the wood in the fire he muttered. "Sleep. I will not be slowing down despite your foraging, you will have to move quickly if you want to eat."

Swallowing hard the girl nodded and then, even as she settled curled tightly a little ways behind him further from the fire than seemed necessary she whispered, "What s-should I call you?"

"Whatever you want."

"...sir?"

He couldn't remember the last time he had laughed, but it escaped out of him before he had a chance to snatch it back, just a short half amused breath sarcastic in it's mirth. "No."

"M...master?" There was pain in the word when she said it and he turned to look over at her, frowning. Her pale eyes glowed, bright like a feline beast or the moon intact and doubled. He gazed back and felt a twinge of homesickness rip through his chest.

"Just Sasuke." Turning back to the fire he frowned, clenching his hands unncessarily in his pockets.

He wasn't sure if he was supposed to hear what she said next, as it was so quiet, and so long after his statement. Thickly weighed with sleep her voice breezed beneath the tinder snapping and cracking as it burned.

"I'm Hinata."

The light of Solatta was already rising and staining the sky a brilliant orange by the time he breathed out a sigh, musing quietly to himself.

"Hinata."

Behind him, out of his sight Hinata's half closed eyes watched and her careful ears heard, drawing a puzzled frown to sketch itself across her forehead.

* * *

They arrived at the village when the suns rose to mark the noon times, casting two shadows for every living thing that walked.

Thanks to Lee's contact, the elders and half the valley had crowded at the base of the mountain path so rarely walked by their people, waiting with bated breath for the return of the Warren.

Neji, long ago placed in charge of the protection of his younger cousins had thought he would return with two bodies mutilated and gored if he was lucky. And so returning as he did with one living breathing creature was not as bad as he had anticipated.

Still, the pain in his chest and the metal taste in his mouth made it hard to forget that the elder more gentle of his wards was out there somewhere or very possibly dead.

There was no time for stopping to discuss the situation. With Hanabi in his arms still beyond all knowledge he and Tenten barged through the waiting crowd, parting it like a fish through water, heading towards the distant shelter of the walled Hawk Eyed Villa.

Murmurs followed their path, whispers passed down turned lips and worried eyes. The quest had taken the daughters of the Hawk Eyed two weeks longer than anticipated, and only then did the clan send out their Warren to find them alive or dead.

Many in the valley had anticipated that the Warren too would not be returning. The world beyond their mountains was too wild, too angry, too close to death. No one could survive out there alone, but if anyone stood even a small chance it was them.

Like the shadow she was, Tenten followed close behind Neji. Her hand ached to touch between his shoulder blades where pain surely burned from the strain of carrying his cousin through such long distances but she refrained under the watchful eyes of the elders and village. Keeping her eyes down and her mouth closed she followed until the wooden carved walls of the villa came into view and as they stepped through the white shining doors into the courtyard she fell back.

Instead of following she watched him disappear into the primary residence, deeper into the villa than she had ever been allowed. Servants surrounded him. People of all types, healers, elders, family.

Quiet as a whisper a tall muscled young man appeared beside her, letting out a breath as his wide perpetually surprised eyes clapped on her. Sighing loudly she finally turned to look at her brother's face.

Lee blinked his eyes rapidly, and had he been someone else perhaps tears would have tinged the lashes. But they were Lee and Tenten, with no clan blood to speak of, no special abilities but those gifted by the Hawk Eyed. Just orphans, willingly serving those more blessed... or perhaps more cursed.

"Brother." Her smile was shaky and he smiled back, drawing her into his arms to squeeze the comfort back into her bones.

"You were missing from me." He pressed his mouth hard to the soft skin of her temple and she sighed.

At least she was home.

* * *

When she woke the sun was largely fallen to the embrace of the mountains. She could see Solatta already a sliver against the black of the range and Luminatus close behind, racing after it's sibling.

Sibling.

Sister.

Eyes widening Hanabi scrambled out of the soft cotton matting on the floor, throwing the blanket off with a fury that sent the servant who had been dozing by her side into a startled tizzy of words she did not hear.

"Where is my Sister?" Hanabi gasped, all sense of decorum shattering in her mind as she pushed past the servant to the heavy wooden door. It flung open with a bang as she entered the corridor and dizzy she studied her familiar home. The honey toned wood frames of the halls, the plaster painted white between panels.

Light flooded in from all the windows, some round, others square, placed carefully and a little insanely on the walls. When the wind blew hard through the court yard, slamming into the walls spotted with the strangely shaped and placed holes the windows sang. They caught the air like a flute, sighing their melody soft and gentle through the whole villa.

Having so many windows also allowed her to hear that outside in the court yard the voices of the elders were raised in argument. The council was meeting.

"Tch!" She hissed, rushing down the stairs to the main floor closely followed by the older woman who had obviously been left to watch her while she slept.

Questions, so many they flooded her mind swamped her. Where was her sister? How long had she been back? Who had gone out to get her? Surely, surely no one had died for her rescue. Surely they had no sent someone as a sacrifice for her life.

Hitting the tile of the veranda with her bare feet made her pause, watching the crowd of elders speaking loudly back and forth. There was nothing calm about this meeting. Usually, a council consisted of many teas, servants carefully robed in red, gray and white serving their black clad leaders. The men and women sat on cushions in the blazing sun of morning, sipping on the tea and discussing in calm voices the issues of the village, the clan and the world that was beyond their valley mountain walls, dying.

This held no such civility.

"The heiress should have left the hunting to someone with more skill. If Hanabi had been backed by a more aggressive hunter-"

"Who are you do deny the heir of the Clan her right? Who are you to look your future leader in the face and say she may not go after the star? That is-or was- her Calling!"

"Hinata knew something! She foretold the demise of the ones who went to hunt the star! We did not listen!"

"Perhaps they never met the star? Perhaps something else took the heiress?"

"The Warren says that Hanabi was found at the site of it's landing. Is that not true, Neji?"

Voices shouted, people pushed and prodded, the dust lifted at their feet from the courtyard stones.

Hanabi's eyes filtered through the black robes of the elders for her cousin, her heart in her throat.

Neji. Of course he would have gone after them when they did not return. Of course he would have volunteered. A knot tightened in her throat and finally, catching sight of her tall stoic cousin she ran.

"Neji!"

Her voice, so clear and strong made silence erupt among the gaggle of gray haired elders, faces turning to her just as she shoved through their crowd and into their midst, throwing her arms around her cousin's waist and nearly sending them both in a tumble to the ground.

Steadying them with a gasp Neji lifted the girl so precious to him to his chest, straining to breathe through the relief. "Hanabi!"

Voices erupted again, loud and braying over each other to be heard.

"The second daughter!"

"She walks!"

"Was she not in an unnatural sleep?"

"No wounds, no injuries!"

With her face pressed so hard into the softness of Neji's shirt Hanabi heard little, focused instead on the smell of coconut oil and orange water that always accompanied her cousin's skin.

Home. She was home, home, home.

Softly, and before anyone could say anything more Neji whispered in her ear.

"I'm so glad you're okay, little fire. But the council waits for no one. Think fast, Hinata's life is in the balance."

Growing still, Hanabi breathed in deep, her mind sparking to life, ears listening.

"Did you meet the star?"

"Where is your sister?"

"What has happened to the heiress?"

"The blood, the sleep- what has happened?"

Through the chaos Hanabi winced, moving to draw a breath, peeling herself from Neji's body with some effort. His arm held her waist tightly to his, supporting her as though he expected her to fall at any moment.

Her cousin, her darling Warren had gone after them. Emotion burned in her chest in thanks, and steeling her jaw she went to speak, only to pause at the sound of a not often heard bass tone ordering silence.

The elders shut their mouths as though magicked into submission. Heads bowed and arms lowered as they turned to the back of the crowd where a man who looked remarkably like Neji stood. Where her cousin still had the smooth skin and handsome features of youth, her father's jaw was lined, his forehead creased with worries. The pale eyes of their bloodline focused on her and she blinked back uncertainly.

"I am sure that Hanabi has much to tell, and should we want to hear it she would be willing to speak if given the opportunity." His eyes flashed over the crowd of overly excited elders and like dogs scolded no one raised their heads despite the rise of blood to cheeks in humiliation.

"But she has just endured a quest not many of us could have stomached. I will speak to her in private and relay all pertinent information to the council in several hours. Please, be prepared to be summoned." Nodding at Neji the Hawk Eyed Clan's leader motioned back to the veranda and holding her stiffly still Neji pulled Hanabi along through the watching, now silent council.

Hanabi let out a worried breath but said nothing as she and her cousin stepped into the veranda and towards the stairs to her father's private rooms, followed closely by his quick stern step.

"In here." He murmured, opening the door to a plain room bright with the orange light of the setting Luminatus. Beyond the wide windows the villa and village buzzed with activity before nightfall. The people bustled about, shuttering windows and gathering their children to the safety of their homes. At night the more bold of the creatures that prowled the outskirts of their mountain forests sometimes dared to enter their territory and there was no easier prey than the small.

Neji and Hanabi started at the sight of Tenten leaning against one of the smooth wooden pillars on either side of the window, her brother behind her.

On the other side of the room two other willing life long servants of the Hawk Eyed Clan stood silently, their faces strained. It took a moment for Hanabi to place them but after a breath she recognized them as Kiba and Shino, Hinata's training partners.

"Hanabi." Tenten sighed, the relief on her voice obvious, although she clamped her mouth shut at a look from Hiashi, lowering her brown eyes to the ground.

"Speak." Hiashi murmured sternly, moving around to the low wooden table that was the only piece of furniture in the room. Slowly he lowered himself to his knees on the cushion placed there and looked at Hanabi expectantly.

Lips pressed to a thin line, Hanabi followed his example and sat on the other side of the table on her knees, her hands tight in her lap.

"We found the star."

A rustle of movement passed through the others, Lee breathed in deeply, expanding his muscled chest beneath his shirt. Kiba straightened and Shino closed his eyes.

Only Neji remained still, eyes locked across the room with Tenten, jaw tight.

"Is your sister dead?" Hiashi's voice did not hesitate on the words, did not even seem to be asking anything of importance. Hanabi strained to keep her body from shivering as a wave of cold swept through her despite the warmth of the dusk light on her left side.

"He was impossible to defeat." She whispered softly, remembering the paleness of his skin, the easy wave of the black razor sharp wings, the shattering of the glass coating the concave crater where he landed.

"We were not prepared."

"He was in fighting form?" Hiashi frowned, for this was what Hinata had argued, her voice shaking with fear tangible in the air as she released the words from her mouth. The stars that fell in vast hordes a century before had been dying or dead, their bodies wounded and broken, the landing finishing off any strength left.

He could hear her, whispering in his ear now. "There was a war- they were falling from battle... they were defeated stars. If one comes now, Father it will be on purpose. It will not _want_ to die."

"He took us both out without straining himself." Hanabi whispered. "We did not stand a chance."

"The blood, on your tunic." A strain in his voice betrayed him for a moment then, and Hanabi's eyes flickered with surprise and then softened.

"It... it is mine."

"But how-?" Kiba suddenly began, stopping at the look that Hiashi threw over his daughter's head at him.

"I was wounded." Hanabi placed a hand on her shoulder, on her side, where the glass had pierced, recalling the angel's hands coated in her blood. "I had broken ribs, and I was drowning. The blood was in my lungs, in my throat." She swallowed, and had she been more like her sister, her eyes would have filled with tears. Instead she closed her eyes.

"My sister offered herself in exchange for me."

"No." This was whispered by Shino, and it carried the weight of all their despair for Shino spoke so rarely many who knew him still did not know the soft tenor of his voice.

"The angel saw her tears." Hanabi opened her eyes to look at Hiashi then, jaw tight. Weeping was something punishable by bamboo rod in their Clan, and Hinata had been in constant breech of the rule. Hiashi looked back at her, carved from stone. "He called it starwater. For her willing service he made me drink his blood to heal my wounds, and left with her. I do not remember anything else."

The silence thickened at the end of her telling, and Hiashi let out a long breath. "She must have known of her value. She must have known she had something to bargain with." More carefully now he whispered, "She is alive then."

Hanabi gave a furtive nod. "He needs her."

"We have three options." Hiashi continued quickly. "One, track them down like prey and steal her when you slay the angel."

Neji snapped his head to his uncle then in surprise, astounded.

"Two, steal her without engaging the fallen star."

Tenten straightened, studying the stoic leader of the clan wonderingly.

"Or three..." He fixed Neji with a look that told him how much he disliked what he was about to say. "...if the first two options do not prove possible, go to the Scaled Worm, to have him find her with his tongue."

Although everyone was swimming in their shock it was Hanabi who whispered out her question.

"...you want us to try to bring her back?" Breathing hard she looked at her father, searching for a shred of affection. They were a warrior clan, the only one of their kind. In them all of the valley had pinned their hopes of survival and as the years passed and the crops failed more and more pressure had made them slaves to the village and their needs. This slavery left little room for love, hardly any for tenderness. Hinata had been born as delicate as a flower petal in an armory full of swords.

"The council will want another attempt at the star." Hiashi replied, brow furrowed. "They will want someone again to bring back it's body to rejuvenate the fields but Hinata knew more about this than we all did together. We did not listen." He swallowed. "Bring back my daughter."

Straightening, Kiba and Shino nodded, along with Tenten and Lee.

"You must remain here." Hiashi murmured to Hanabi then, watching without surprise as she flinched. "Father... father, no please-"

"Someone must lead this village." His eyes flickered to Neji. "It is the Warren's job to risk life and limb for his charges, it is your job to be here for your people. Hinata knew this, do not let her sacrifice go to waste."

Clenching her jaw hard Hanabi bowed her head.

"For our glory."

Together, the rest complied.

"And for those of the Hawk Eyed Blood."

* * *

The blood of the angel had done things to her body she did not think were possible. Besides knitting together wounds that she had been fairly sure had infection and therefore death inside them, her lips were plump as though she had rehydrated herself in the coolest of rivers. Her head was clear of the painful cobwebs of hunger, her muscles felt sleek and ready to spring.

Besides the tangled mess of her black hair and the tattered shreds of her clothing she felt better than she had in a very long time.

He kept a relentless pace despite the fact she was gathering as they walked and sometimes she whimpered internally when a tree loaded heavy with edibles presented itself only to take too long to climb without losing him in the forest maze.

On the third pass of such abundance she stopped, clenching her fists tightly together, hoping that the silence of her footsteps no longer cracking the underbrush beneath her boots would signal she was no longer following.

It took two seconds for him to pause and look over his shoulder at her among the dark browns and grays of the wood, brows furrowed in question.

"...C-can I climb?" She finally murmured, turning her eyes up to the foliage above where the branches swayed in the breeze. Thick leaves the size of dinner plates made the light of Luminatus and Solatta spotty as it landed on the ground below, moving like the water of the hot springs back home, bubbling. Among the pale gray branches of the loomloom tree was the spiky lime green baubles of the nuts. Cracked open they held within their hard shells a butter that dripped thick and syrupy and tasted of vanilla and sugar, packed with protein and easily accessed energy.

A handful could be kept for several days at a time without spoiling and to pass them by without picking seemed a sin.

Sasuke's frown did not lessen although it was more from disbelief than annoyance as he eyed the trunk of the tree. Smooth bark covered it's tall and vertical height, with the first forking branches being easily fifteen feet high. It's roots twisted and turned like squid tentacles through the crackling dead leaves of the soil, giving no perch for starting a climb.

He eyed her, standing a tiny five feet and a handful of inches at most.

"I don't know." He admitted, "Can you?" He certainly had no plans on climbing and picking fruit for her hungry little mouth. Like a rabbit she had not stopped munching on leafy handfuls or fistfuls of berries since morning.

Blinking hard Hinata stared at him, her mouth a thin line that seemed almost insulted.

Without another word she turned to the tree, cocked her head at it as though gauging an opponent and then surprising him she ran.

The joy of feeling her muscles happy and free, pulsing with the health that his blood had poured into her being was almost enough to make her smile, although she contained it. Smoothly she propelled herself off the first bucking thick root that pushed from the ground slamming her next step into the smoothness of the trunk and tossing her weight backwards arched in a tumble back from the tree high enough to catch the sloping young branch closest to the forest floor with her fingers.

Unable to contain her grin then she hung for a moment, watching the wide leaves disturbed by her antics spiraling down to the ground slowly before swinging her legs and wrapping them tightly around the branch. With a little bit of grunting she was crouching on the limb and hesitantly she glanced at him.

One brow was delicately raised, and if she had been her sister she would have stuck out her tongue at him for her victory. Instead she strained not to blush and tight roped towards the trunk, using the more sturdy branches near it to rise twenty and then thirty feet into the air. Happily, she ignored the sappy residue coating her hands as she gathered the nuts in the piece of fabric she ripped from the edge of her torn and tattered tunic.

In silence she worked until a sizzle of irritation seemed to prick at the back of her consciousness and glancing down at him again she quickly snaked down the trunk and jumped the last ten feet, landing easily on the forest ground with her treasures.

Already having cracked one to suck on while she worked she hesitated, then offered him the other half. "W...would you like to try it?"

He stared, black eyes puzzled before shaking his head.

"You're going to need everything you can get."

She followed, agreeing with him although she was puzzled by the disappointment that made her return her hand to her side.

Their silence continued for several paces with Hinata cuddling the tangle of nuts in her arms, sucking on the butter within absently while she eyed the threatening wood, keen eyes wary, ears listening.

"It seems like you should be able to live off the forest if not the fields." He suddenly grumbled, and it occurred to her that he had been thinking hard as they walked, about her climb and subsequent snack. "Why do your people insist on waiting to kill my kind if you have such abundance? Every few steps you take a bite of something."

Blushing hard at the insinuation of gluttony Hinata frowned, rubbing at a sticky bit of sap now black on her chin from her climb.

"My... my Clan goes to the forest to gather for the village every day." She muttered. "We risk life and limb every minute we spend in the forests around our valley. The beasts have grown desperate and vindictive." She sniffed. "The firespawn have made many half breeds. It is not safe to wander too far into the forest, and in the winter the plants refuse to give sustenance, so we hunt flesh for the villagers."

He turned sharply, staring at her. "You said you don't eat flesh."

She paused, looking sheepish. "I... I don't... we give all we gather to the village, our Clan lives off the little we can ferment and dry during the plentiful months. And the left overs of the gleaning through the mountains... and anything the village offer from the fields, if there's growth at all." For a moment her stomach rolled at the thought of eating flesh, the blood and the smell of the carcass being cleaned made her dizzy. The flesh filled bellies and eased the pain of hunger, but sickness seemed to pervade those who ate it more easily than those of the Clan who needed to be in true fighting form to go out into the wild. For that reason her Clan wore only white, for compassion and practiced only killing in necessity, red for the bloodshed that stained them, a burden only they bore and gray for when they made their first kill.

Sasuke glanced at the bundle in her arms, at her rosy cheeks and remembered the almost giddy grin on her face as she cracked the first nut open in the tree to suck the fluid from inside.

"Have you ever had that many to yourself?" He motioned with his chin to the bundle in her arms and Hinata looked down at the dozen nuts, glistening in their spiky lime green shells.

Nervously she licked her lip, and looked back up. "No."

When he said nothing nor turned away she added, sounding almost embarrassed. "I have...never tried one."

There were only a handful of loomloom trees in the wood of the mountains close enough to forage from every year. Out of the hundreds of nuts gathered by her clan only a crate of them would be theirs to consume, and since it was a sweetener when dried no one got a chance to enjoy them fresh. They would all be cracked, the syrup dried in the heat of the suns, pounded to powder and distributed in small bits through the winter that followed as a reprieve from the stale barley cakes and wheat porridge that were their usual fare.

His eyes looked far away, as though this was something he had not considered and feeling that perhaps she had a chance to speak she breathed in hard.

"I did not _want_ to kill you." The words tumbled out as though she had forced them to escape before losing her nerve. "But... but... I do not want my people to die."

A flash of something struck through his face like a rip of lightning and he turned sharply away, stalking like a panther through the jungle.

"Make haste."

His order was stern and made her jump quickly after him, the sweetness of the loomloom butter suddenly less pleasurable in her mouth.

* * *

It was becoming abundantly clear that the hunt for the star was what the council of elders wanted, despite Hiashi's stern attempts to steer them in a different direction. One less likely to result in all of their party dead.

Together Tenten and Lee sat right behind Neji in the semi circle of black robed gray and white heads. Of all the people gathered only their dark brown and black heads shown with youth. For a moment Tenten sighed deeply, looking up at the swirling indigo and blue sky, pondering how people too old to go out into the frigid deadly world beyond their valley were the ones deciding their path.

"We are running out of the bone powder from the last star." One of the youngest elders was snapping, her voice sharp as a whip and her eyes although half blind were still daggers as they tried to focus on Hiashi at the mouth of the semi circle.

Hiashi sighed, unable to reply as another elder jumped in, his gravelly old voice shaky, his liver spotted hands trembling as he clenched them in his lap.

"The star could potentially destroy all of our best hunters. What then would the people live off of? During the winter when the village begs for sustenance and we have nothing in the stores to give for their children's porridge who will go out into the wild to slay the creatures that lurk there?" He raised both his bushy eyebrows to stare at the slightly younger elder, who clenched her jaw tight. "Will it be you?"

Offended the woman gathered herself like a chicken rustling it's feathers and Hiashi intervened.

"My daughter... our heiress..." He looked at each face in turn slowly. "...Hinata knew more about the stars than any of us gave her credit. She foresaw the demise of the hunt, she even saw that a fallen star would come not wounded as history tells us the last were, but living, and with no intention to simply lay down and die. "

Silence reigned as the others digested this warily.

"She knew to trade her tears for the life of her younger sister, so that one of the heirs would return remarkably unscathed. What we need is her wisdom, gained over years of study..."

Surprising everyone Neji's voice, never before heard on the council, broke the silence. "Study that the council gravely punished her for."

There was a shift in the silence that followed, a sort of shameful rustle of black robes as those who had spoken against the heiress and her eccentric reading habits bowed their heads or looked away.

"What if the angel has moved too far into the Dryness or flown over the Rot?" One of the elders suddenly broke in, and his eyes were not on Hiashi but on Neji, challenging. "What will you do if when you return to the site of his landing there is no trail to follow? What then?"

Behind him Tenten and Lee straightened their spines until they were sentries like the lions of ancient legend, their eyes flashing.

Neji let out a breath softly before answering. "We will go to the Scaled Worm." He kept himself from wincing although almost every elder in the circle was unable to do the same. "We will ask him to locate her by tasting the air with his tongue."

"...he... he could demand one of your lives- all of your lives..." And although the elder was polite enough to glance at Tenten and Lee like they mattered they and everyone knew that it was Neji who worried them, third in line for Clan Head, and with Hinata already gone...

"I am the Warren." He bowed his head. "My life is willingly given to this task."

Behind him Lee and Tenten bowed much lower, pressing their foreheads between the triangle shape of their fingers and thumbs on the cobble stone of the court yard ground. By extension, the two siblings also surrendered their lives.

When the dawn came and Solatta stretched it's golden fingers through the navy of the night sky Neji looked at Tenten desperately, his face so tense before now cracking, pale eyes pleading as they stood within the shadows of the Villa entrance.

"Tenten, _please_."

Behind them, waiting patiently stood her brother, Kiba and Shino, their packs on their shoulders, their cloaks neatly tied around their throats.

Shifting her pack carefully she smiled, searching his face. "What excuse would you give the elders for leaving me behind?"

"It is not an excuse. Hanabi needs a companion, someone besides her Father on her side." Neji tried, knowing it was a weak attempt. Tenten's grin only spread.

"I did not give my freedom for Hanabi." She grinned still. "I offered my life to the Hawk Eyed Clan, in service of their Warren... in service of _you_. Konohamaru long ago promised his blood for your cousin. She has her own allies."

The swallow he struggled with made her hand itch to place itself on his cheek. Gripping her pack fiercely instead she whispered. "If we are to die, I want to do so with you."

Behind them Lee's voice called, low and warning and urgent. "Sister... my lord Warren."

Neji's eyes flickered from Tenten's face to the veranda where a pair of elders walked, their eyes focusing on him and Tenten with curious frowns not entirely friendly.

"This is inappropriate." He whispered, although if it was to her or to himself it was hard to tell. Stepping away abruptly he turned, heading towards the others waiting.

"Come, Tenten. Do not dawdle."

Wincing at the scolding tone Tenten followed, head bowed, trying to ignore the rip of frustration and hurt in her chest.

From the second floor porch, watching with her heart in her throat Hanabi frowned after them, watching as they disappeared over the crest of the hill that led to the village beyond and then the forest she had had to travel through with her sister only a month ago.

"Veil keep them, guide them, bring them back to me."

Unsure if anyone would hear her prayer she glanced up to where the last of the few remaining stars glimmered in the half light of dawn. Once, as a child she had prayed to those above to end the hunger and the ever encroaching crawl of the Dryness and Rot that seemed to spread over any land that wasn't touched by the angel bone dust her clan spread.

Now, no longer a child she did not bother. Stars were for slaying, not for praying to.

* * *

**_TBC_ **


End file.
